


ancestrydotcom

by ktula



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adopted Rey (Star Wars), Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Brendol Hux's A+ Parenting, Inspired by Twitter, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23382706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktula/pseuds/ktula
Summary: Rey uses one of those DNA websites (you know the ones) in order to track down her biological family, with great success.Unfortunately, Kylo already knows the guy.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 49
Kudos: 157





	ancestrydotcom

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes at the end.
> 
> *
> 
> It's possible you'll already recognize the fic--this is a twitfic I did a while back (I do not care to answer how long, lolsob), which has been cleaned up, edited, and smoothed out in order to be archived on ao3. Stylistically, I've kept the short paragraphs/excessive linebreaks, so we can all get a little workout on our scroll muscles for this one, lolsob.

“—and I just wanna make sure you won’t be mad?”

Kylo raises his eyebrows, stares at his sister. “Rey, dude. I’ve known that you’re adopted your entire life, what do I care if you want to find other family members?”

She scrunches her face up. “I just don’t want you to feel like I’m trying to invalidate our relationship—”

Kylo rolls his eyes. “Jeez, it’d be kinda nice if you did invalidate it. Maybe I could be less responsible for you all the time, I bet my uni grades would be better if I wasn’t driving you everywhere—”

He doesn’t quite duck the punch fast enough.

(Her knuckles are just as sharp now when she’s sixteen as they were when she was five, and he’ll have little teeny knuckle bruises on his arm tomorrow.)

*

“Kylo!” Rey yells a couple weeks later.

“What!” he yells back. “I’m trying to study!”

“I found somebody!”

“Found somebody what!”

“Asshole, you know what!”

—and then he remembers, shoves his chair back and runs upstairs as quick as he can to where she’s sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the monitor.

The picture she’s displaying on the screen is so unexpected that Kylo actually blurts out, “Oh, hey, fuck, I know that guy!” before he has a minute to catch his breath.

“How?” Rey asks. She's so excited she's practically vibrating.

Kylo fumbles. "From, uh, campus."

He's not entirely lying.

He was on campus when he found the redhead on Grindr.

*

The worst part of the whole thing is how fucking excited Rey is. Like, it’s the internet, and she’s young enough that the whole thing is a thrill for her, but Kylo is old enough that he is keenly aware of all the ways this is gonna go wrong. Like, sure, Rey’s pretty much an adult, but she’s also more or less his responsibility still—at least, she is when Han and Leia are away. Plus, Kylo remembers the redhead, and he was pretty yelly. Had a sharp tongue. Rey’s going to be absolutely devastated if she goes to meet her—cousin or uncle or whatever, and he’s a total asshole.

Kylo’s just gonna have to go to the meeting.

Just to make sure that the redhead doesn’t flip out on her.

He’s doing this for Rey.

*

(The thing is—you don’t just tell somebody they’re the best dick you’ve ever had, and then follow up by blocking them. That’s not how it’s done. That’s not how this works. The point of Kylo’s dick being the best dick that somebody’s ever had is _to dick again_. That’s why apps like Grindr even exist in the first place—repeated dicking!)

*

The redhead is probably an axe murderer. He’s got the cheekbones for it—at least, he does in the photo that he’s got posted on the DNA website, which Kylo definitely did not take a picture of with his phone the minute Rey’s back was turned. It’s a good photo. Kylo hadn’t screenshotted the guy’s Grindr profile, because there was no reason to—it wasn’t like he was gonna forget him, and it wasn’t like he expected the guy to block him after. He figured there’d be tons of opportunities to see him again.

It’s just that there weren’t.

*

“Honestly, Kylo, I’m fine.”

“No,” Kylo insists. “I’m coming with you. I have to drop you off anyway—and what if he steals your purse or something?”

She cocks her head. “I have a duct tape wallet, and there’s nothing in it except that five you gave me the other day.”

“Well, I—”

“You still owe me fifteen, by the way.”

Kylo sighs, and digs in his back pocket for his own wallet—leather—digs out a twenty, and hands it over.

“Plus,” she says, cramming his crisp new twenty into her grungy, disgusting wallet, “I know my way around campus and everything, you can just drop me off at the corner, and then I’ll go to the coffeeshop by myself! I’m sixteen.”

“I’m coming with you,” Kylo says firmly. “Non-negotiable.”

*

The thing is, she’s not wrong. She’s perfectly capable of looking after herself, and she’s familiar with campus—after all, Kylo has been dragging her there for years, when he needed to study and Leia needed to work, and Rey still had a tendency to set things on fire if left unsupervised. (And if she and Kylo occasionally set things on fire in the parking lot, that was nobody’s business. Far cheaper to bribe her for good behaviour by promising they can set something on fire behind the arts building instead of having to buy her weight in cookies or something.

And Kylo knows he could just drop her off, and she’d be fine. She’s quick with her fists and her feet, and if she needed to kick the redhead in the kneecap and make a run for it, she totally could.

Kylo knows she’ll be fine. But.

It’s just that he doesn’t think he did anything wrong?

He remembers the look on the redhead's face afterwards—flushed and blissed out, languidly smoking a cigarette with Kylo's sheet held loosely around his shoulders, and a love bite blooming on his right pec.

"That's the best dick I've ever had," he said—and then, if that wasn't enough, if Kylo's heart wasn't already suddenly full to bursting, the redhead had added "Thank you", and Kylo didn't really have a hope after that.

Less than an hour after the redhead had left his flat, Kylo was blocked.

*

Kylo leaves it up to chance—and, as far as he’s concerned, an open parking spot on a Saturday afternoon means that he definitely needs to go into the coffeeshop with Rey. So he does. And he sits there. And he waits.

(He does not criticize Rey for swinging her feet, even though it’s driving him nuts.)

(He does absolutely get an attack of nerves the second he sees red hair in the distance. “Going for a smoke,” he announces before he makes eye contact, and thank fuck for the back door of the coffeeshop.)

*

Kylo smokes his cigarette slowly, blows misshapen smoke rings into the alley. When the cigarette is smoked down to the filter, he stubs it out, tosses it on the ground. Glances back through the window of the coffeeshop, and looks away almost immediately, because Rey is gesturing with her hands in that way that means she’s talking a mile a minute, and he’s just going to let her have this.

It’s fine.

He’s just lighting up a second cigarette when the door behind him swings open.

Moments after that, a crisp voice next to him says, “Hey, can I borrow—oh, it _is_ you."

Kylo looks up. Clenches his jaw.

Looks over his shoulder into the coffeeshop. Rey is still there, talking the ear off a totally different redhead—but the one Kylo had fucked, the one who had broken his heart, _that_ particular redhead is standing right next to him.

He hands over his lighter by instinct, watches the redhead light up. He’s got cheekbones for days, and a severe haircut, his hair pressed back into place so tightly that Kylo doubts even a gale-force wind would disrupt it.

It’s the same guy.

It has to be the same guy.

He looks a little older, sure. A little more tired, a lot less happy. But it’s gotta be the same guy.

When the guy tips the lighter back into Kylo’s hand, there are nail marks on his palm.

Kylo doesn’t mean to say it.

(That’s a lie. Kylo _definitely_ means to say it, and he’s not even gonna blame poor impulse control for this.)

“Best dick you’ve ever had,” Kylo says, “and you didn’t figure you might want to leave your number with me after? Ask for mine? Have a second round?”

The guy takes a long drag off his cigarette, exhales twin streams of smoke through his nose. He has the audacity to look vaguely shocked, in the same way that a marble statue might. “Excuse me?”

“That’s typically what’s done,” Kylo says, twisting the knife a little further. “When it’s the best dick you’ve ever had. And when you’re not a liar.”

“Why?” the guy asks curiously.

Kylo stares at him.

“It's not like it was happening again,” the guy continues. “There wouldn't be much point in leaving you my contact info.”

“So you are a liar,” Kylo says, voice going louder than he means it to.

“No,” the guy says calmly. “I'm not. I meant it. It was the best dick I've ever had.” His eyes coolly trace down Kylo's body, and then back up again to his face. “I think about it a lot.”

“What the fuck,” Kylo snaps. He jabs his finger in the guy’s direction. “Are you a sociopath or something?”

“Now that's an idea,” the guy says. He takes another pull on his cigarette, exhales the smoke in a series of smoke rings. “Do you think it's possible to become one on purpose?”

Kylo is completely stunned. “Uh...”

The redhead rotates his wrist to look at his smart watch, and then looks over Kylo's shoulder into the coffeeshop. “It was lovely seeing you again,” he says coolly. “I have to go inside now.”

“Wait,” Kylo says, catching the redhead’s arm as he tries to brush past.

The guy looks at Kylo’s hand.

“What would it have solved,” Kylo blurts. “Acquired sociopathy. What would—”

The redhead tugs his arm sharply, reaches for the door, and goes back inside without saying anything.

*

Kylo is furious.

Then he's upset.

Then he's sad, tips quickly into depression, and then falls back out into resignation—and since the entire emotional transition takes place in less than ten seconds, there’s nothing to do afterwards but square his shoulders, and go inside the coffeeshop.

There's one chair left at the table, and it's right between Rey and Acquired Sociopathy. Kylo yanks it out, and sits down heavily, keeping his knees wide, and angling his body toward the other redhead, the one sitting across from him.

The one that’s not a goddamn prick.

Kylo sticks his hand out. "I'm Kylo."

Rey smiles tightly. “My brother has no manners.” She crosses her legs, uses the movement as an excuse to drill her pointy knee into Kylo’s thigh.

Kylo shifts that leg in so that he's only half-manspreading, and then slides his other foot under the chair.

Acquired Sociopathy is staring at his phone. His knees are together. He's skinny enough there's literal inches of space between his leg and Kylo's.

“Most people call me Techie,” the other redhead is saying. He glances at Rey, leans in. Speaks quietly. “My brother hasn’t got shit for manners either.” He looks over. “Introduce yourself, Arm—”

“Armitage Hux,” Acquired Sociopathy says. He shakes Rey's hand without looking up from his phone.

“Isn't this exciting,” Rey says in that tone of voice that means they'd best at least fake it. “Two new brothers!”

“A real collection of bastards,” Armitage says—and, at the same time, Kylo says, “Just a reminder, I’m not related by blood.”

Silence.

“I'm just here for moral support,” Kylo says, recognizing the look on Rey's face entirely too late.

She turns on Kylo. “I cannot believe,” she hisses, “that you would do this to me, that you would treat me like this in public, and—and denigrate our relationship after you told me it was fine, you _know_ how important this is to me, you _know_ —”

There's an awkward bark of laughter from the other side of the table.

Kylo and Rey both look over at Techie.

Techie's hand is pressed over his mouth, red-rimmed eyes watering. "Sorry," he says hoarsely. "I just realized." He gestures at Armitage—still focused on his phone—and then at Kylo. “Your brother—”

“Don’t,” Armitage says flatly.

“—was my brother’s last Grindr hookup—”

“Lovely, let’s just—”

“—three years ago.”

Armitage drops his phone on the table with a clatter, squeezes his eyes shut.

Kylo _stares_ at him.

“Well, thank fuck I’m adopted,” Rey says. “Seriously, could you imagine—”

“No,” Kylo says, before turning to stare at Armitage. “Three _years_?”

Armitage says nothing, just opens his eyes and looks at Kylo.

“Wait,” Kylo says. “Your _last_ hookup?”

Armitage picks up his phone, rubs the screen on his sleeve. “You see the benefit to acquired sociopathy now,” he says. “There were feelings. I didn’t want that. And your—well, you know.”

Techie snickers, making only the vaguest attempt at covering it with his hand.

“But you deleted the app,” Kylo says.

“Yes,” Armitage says curtly.

“He got another PhD,” Techie offers.

“You mean a post—” Rey interjects.

“No,” Techie interrupts. “A second PhD. I know, I told him, but he didn’t listen to me.”

Kylo is still staring. He can’t think. He can’t function. (He feels—bad, inexplicably, for all the sex he’s had since, because he sure as fuck didn’t stop having Grindr hookups after Armitage ghosted on him—but he didn’t really stop thinking about Armitage either.)

“I’m done here,” Armitage says abruptly. He pushes his chair back, pockets his phone. Heads for the door.

Kylo exhales, sits back in his chair. Glances over at Rey.

She lifts her eyebrow. “Well?” she asks.

“For fuck’s sake,” Techie says. “Just go, he’ll be impossible to live with if you don’t chase after him.”

“Hey,” Kylo says. “It’s no skin off my back if he wants to get into a snit—”

“You _want_ him to stop being hung up on you?” Techie asks.

“…no,” Kylo says. “No, I do not.”

“Just go,” Rey says, exasperated. “I wanna hang out with my nice brother.”

“He left,” Techie deadpans. “You’re stuck with me.” He swallows audibly, pushes his hair back. There’s an ink smear on his forehead. “Seriously, though, if you don’t catch up with him before he rounds the corner, he’ll never forgive you.”

“But,” Kylo says.

“Three _years_ ,” Techie says. “For fuck’s sake, would you go retrieve my little brother?”

Kylo looks at him. Techie looks nothing like Armitage, but the light in the coffeeshop glints off his hair just the same, and Kylo remembers how Armitage looked lounging in his bed like he belonged there, with ash collecting on the end of his cigarette, and the light from Kylo’s bedside table reflecting on Armitage’s hair, and he feels something tug in the pit of his stomach.

“Fine,” he says. “Whatever.” He shoves back his chair harder than he needs to, just to make a point. Stalks toward the entrance of the coffeeshop. Checks himself before he yanks the door open too hard, but only because he can feel Rey glaring at him, and he does feel a bit bad about ruining things for her.

Not much, but a bit.

*

He catches up with Armitage before Armitage gets around the corner. “So,” Kylo says.

Armitage turns on him, eyes sharp. “Why won’t you just let this be _easy_?”

“Hey,” Kylo says. “The fuck is your problem?”

“Three _fucking_ years,” Armitage says, advancing on Kylo and jabbing at Kylo’s chest with his index finger. “And you have the audacity to show up to a meeting which you weren’t even _invited_ to—”

“Hey, she’s my goddamn _sister_ ,” Kylo says, taking a step closer to Armitage, forcing him to step back. “I don’t give a shit that it’s not by blood, I don’t know anything about you fucks, I’m not sending her in if it’s dangerous—”

“Well, you’re the fucking first for that,” Armitage says bitterly, and then something in his face shifts, and he turns, sharply, until he’s facing away from Kylo.

(It’s been three years since they fucked, but something about the look in Armitage’s eyes jolts a memory. Kylo had only caught flashes of it that night, but he remembers how Armitage’s eyes had looked as he’d sat in Kylo’s bed afterwards, blowing smoke up at the ceiling.)

“Look,” Kylo says. “I don’t know what I’m missing here.”

(Wet. They’d looked wet.)

Armitage says nothing.

“It’s not like my family situation is easy,” Kylo continues.

“Oh,” Armitage says dryly. “You’re a bastard as well, then?”

“Well, uh, no, but—”

“And how many siblings have you got?”

“—just Rey, and—”

“And she looks like she’s eating, looks happy—I mean, the two of you clearly get along—”

“We don’t, not really—”

Armitage turns back to him, eyes like two chips of ice. “Oh, sorry, do you have _spats_ over…oh, I don’t know. Whose turn it is to use the Xbox?”

Kylo reels back. “God, no, we don’t—I have my own, I live in the guest house, I…oh.”

“Precisely,” Armitage says. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out and lights another cigarette—with his own lighter—and stares off into the distance while he smokes it. “I’m a bastard in a horde of bastards. My father legitimized me because—” He glances over his shoulder back at the coffeeshop, and then his face hardens over again. “It’s no matter. He was an abusive prick who couldn’t keep it in his pants, and I’m glad he’s dead.”

“…you didn’t find out about your siblings until after he died.”

Armitage smiles, and it’s like a crack in a sheet of glass.

(One touch, and the whole thing will shatter.)

“It was a throwaway line in the will. The estate was to be divided among all surviving children. It was…well.” Armitage glances over at Kylo sidelong, exhales smoke through his nose. “I can’t for the life of me figure out why I’m telling you any of this.”

“’Cuz you like my dick,” Kylo says smugly.

Armitage laughs, and it’s entirely devoid of humour. “God help you,” he says. “You’re still hung up on that? It’s been three years.”

Kylo shrugs. “Nicest thing anybody’s ever said about my dick.” Pauses. “Or about me.”

Armitage sighs heavily. “Please stop,” he says softly. Takes a long drag on his cigarette, followed by an even longer exhalation. “If I weren’t currently running around trying to—sort out all the lives my father has ruined, this might have been a different situation. But I am. And it isn’t.” He pulls his phone from the pocket of his blazer, glances at it. Sighs.

Kylo leans over trying to see what’s on the screen. Armitage turns his phone away, but doesn’t move out of Kylo’s shadow. Up close, Armitage smells like cigarette smoke, both fresh and stale. He’s wearing different aftershave than what he wore three years ago. He’s just as tall and pointed as Kylo remembers.

(God, he’d worn the shadow of the bruises from Armitage’s hipbones for days afterwards.)

Kylo’s phone vibrates in a pattern he recognizes all too well. He scowls, yanks it out of his back pocket.

_Rey: u ok?_

_Kylo: yes_

_Rey: we can see u from coffeeshop_

_Rey: u look mad_

Kylo glances back over his shoulder, flips up his middle finger. “They’re watching us,” he says to Armitage. “From inside.”

Armitage doesn’t respond other than to shrug, and tap the ash off the end of his cigarette. He takes one last inhale, and then tucks the butt into a little container that he pulls from his other pocket.

God, the man won’t even _litter_ , and Kylo feels a surge of—

—well, lust seems close enough.

“So,” Kylo says, shifting a little closer to Armitage. “I was thinking…”

“Don’t,” Armitage says crisply. He glances over at Kylo. “It’s been four years of hunting down my father’s bastards and making sure they’re safe, and I expect at least four more.”

Kylo huffs out an exasperated breath, sorts through all the things he’s trying not to say—like telling Armitage there’s no reason to be an asshole about it, or telling him that Armitage won’t find anybody else with a dick like Kylo’s, or even offering to help—and then he glances over his shoulder, catches sight of Rey and Techie coming toward them, and realizes that he’s missed the obvious answer.

“It’s okay,” Kylo says, breaking out into a smug grin. “I didn’t wanna wait around for you anyway.”

“…good,” Armitage says.

“I don’t have time for that,” Kylo adds. He steps away from Armitage, gestures at Rey as she approaches. “Turns out my adopted sister has a whole bunch of bastard siblings that she might want to track down.”

Armitage looks at Rey and Techie. Looks back at Kylo.

Goes pale.

“You wouldn’t,” he says. “We’ll be tripping over each other.”

“I heard her father was a prick who couldn’t keep it in his pants,” Kylo says, grinning widely now. “There’s probably siblings all over the place.”

“You’ll be redoing work I’ve already done,” Armitage says.

“I bet she’s got a whole ton of brothers and sisters,” Kylo says, laughing. “Hey, Rey—”

“That’s _enough_ ,” Armitage snaps, and there he is—there’s the beautiful monster who destroyed Kylo’s life three years ago, that had ridden Kylo’s dick until Kylo had seen stars, had panted and moaned underneath Kylo the entire night, demanding more and more and more. His eyes are flashing, and his mouth is tight, and he’s fucking handsome as all hell.

“No,” Kylo says, feeling suddenly, gleefully hysterical with it. “It’s not enough at all. That’s the best part, Armitage. I’m just going to randomly bump into you now. You’re related by blood to my sister—and I’m not related to her at all, this is _amazing_.”

“I never should have come,” Armitage mutters. “I should have just sent Techie.”

“I don’t go places alone,” Techie says, shrugging one shoulder. “You know that.”

“Don’t be an ass, Kylo,” Rey says. “It was very nice to meet you both. I gave Techie my email so we can keep in touch? If you want?”

“I’ll Skype you later tonight,” Techie says. “We’ll call everyone else and introduce you.”

Rey’s grin is bright enough to drown out the sun.

It’s not quite bright enough to drown out the glory of Armitage’s scowl.

Kylo leans over to him. “Careful, buddy,” he says in an undertone. “That looks like a feeling.”

He knows Rey and Armitage are related the minute he says it.

Apparently pointy knuckles and a quick punch are hallmarks of the Hux genes.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Content Notes:** Han and Leia adopted Rey some years ago, and Rey and Kylo were raised as siblings | Rey is biologically one of Brendol's bastards, same as Armitage, Techie, etc | Kylo and Armitage both smoke | Armitage makes a joke about acquired sociopathy; my psychology degree and I both winced |
> 
> Incidentally, this is chronologically the first Techie I've ever written--it's just the second that I've published, because what is time.
> 
> Thank you for the beta work, Deadsy!
> 
> I'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), mostly.


End file.
